Posted on 01/14/2008 5:59:16 PM PST by phatus maximus
Spychief Mike McConnell is drafting a plan to protect America’s cyberspace that will raise privacy issues and make the current debate over surveillance law look like “a walk in the park,” McConnell tells The New Yorker in the issue set to hit newsstands Monday. “This is going to be a goat rope on the Hill. My prediction is that we’re going to screw around with this until something horrendous happens.”
At issue, McConnell acknowledges, is that in order to accomplish his plan, the government must have the ability to read all the information crossing the Internet in the United States in order to protect it from abuse. Congressional aides tell The Journal that they, too, are also anticipating a fight over civil liberties that will rival the battles over the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Part of the lawmakers’ ire, they have said, is the paltry information the administration has provided. The cyberspace security initiative was first reported in September by The Baltimore Sun, and some congressional aides say that lawmakers have still learned more from the media than they did from the few Top Secret briefings they have received hours before the administration requested money in November to jump start the program.
In a series of interviews that began in July, McConnell also weighs in on the hunt for Osama bin Laden. In the past six years, McConnell says, U.S. intelligence agencies have stopped “many, many” terrorist attacks. But his deputy David Shedd says that in the search for America’s most-wanted terrorist, “the trail is cold.” McConnell says that while bin Laden is believed to be in the tribal region of Pakistan, the U.S. will not invade the country to chase him down.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.wsj.com ...
BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING!!
This has been posted twice already this evening . . . :-)
Ugh...i can never keep up...thanks...
I don’t have much confidence in Congress, but right now, it may be our only recourse. This needs to be banned.
It can’t be posted enough.
True that...My wife thinks I’m nuts, but I truly see our country becoming more and more like the old Soviet Union in terms of oversight by government officials. More and more we’re told what’s best for us and laws are put in place to protect us from ourselves...The founding fathers would be disgusted by what’s going on...
Take that up with the Admin Mod, not me. I’m just saying.
Sir...we have found Bin Laden, from our search of the Internet...’Oh?’
Yes, in volume 2427, page 9.874 we found his address as
690 84Th Avenue NW, Washington DC
DC ?..well, let’s go get him....
Can’t sir....That volume was from 1998, we’re still reading...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.